Ed Stack, chairman and CEO of Dick’s Sporting Goods, also spent some time with investors at the Goldman Sachs conference, again reiterating that the retailer will continue its goal of achieving 15% of total sales coming from private label. Stack sees the number growing as they receive better terms from their Asian sourcing partners.
Dick’s expects to see improvements in their private label gross margins, which are already 600 to 700 basis points higher than their branded merchandise.

Dick’s will continue it’s growth plans, with a 15% increase in square footage each year. This should translate into a 30 basis point increase in operating income per year and a long term EPS growth rate of 20%.

Dick’s also wants to expand their “best in class lead” in the sporting goods retail world. Stack also said that he expects Dick’s to be the largest sporting goods retailer in the nation, “maybe by the third quarter but certainly by Q4,” of next year.

Mr. Stack went into great detail concerning the Galyan’s acquisition which was recently completed, and said, “It was not the friendliest transaction,” and Galyan’s didn’t give them any information until after the deal was closed. Because of the delay, Mr. Stack said they are still evaluating their strategy on the future of the single store markets and the future store closing expenses.

The CEO said that they have been spoken with every Galyan’s store manager to see what needs to be done differently. Several initiatives will be put in place, but the most startling discovery for Stack was that there was no “key item strategy” in place and the number one thing that each store complained about was running out of key item inventory. One manager told Stack that he had to walk 25 children out of his store in a single day because he couldn’t fit them in cleats, and every manager felt they could easily double their golf business.

Additionally, every Galyans manager “without fail” said that they needed to get rid of their children’s lifestyle apparel because people didn’t come to a sporting goods store for that product.